Welcome 100 MBA Listeners.

HAYOOOO! Back at you Omar.  And hello, my name is Clay Staires.  America’s Millionaire School Teacher and self-proclaimed hairstylist for Dwayne Johnson, The Rock.  I spent 47 years of my life working hard putting in crazy hours only to find that I still wasn’t tapping into the true gold that was inside of me.  Do you know what I mean? “There’s more to me than I’ve tapped into.” Well, at the ripe old age of 47, I decided to jump off the proverbial cliff and become an entrepreneur.  I wasn’t born this way, it wasn’t natural, I had to become the person I wanted to be.  

Omar, thanks for letting me be a guest on your show.

Today I’m going to be teaching you all about…The 5 Staires Steps For How to Create Repeat Business and Customer Experiences that WOW NOW  

Poor customer service almost always comes down to the responsibility of leadership.  There are two reasons for poor customer service

1.  Training
2. Accountability

Too often leaders give people tasks to do but they don’t train them well or they don’t hold them accountable to do what they have been told to do.  As a result, you find yourself just relying on people to be great on their own – and they’re not.

I have a friend, Arthur, who owns a Chick fil A store in Tulsa, Oklahoma – He has people asking him all the time, “How do you get these young kids to say ‘my pleasure’ all the time?”  His response, “We tell them to do it and then we fire the ones that don’t.” Boom! Wow! That’s genius! “Do this or else you’re fired.”

I think we can all agree that Chick Fil A hits it out of the park with customer service.  Great customer service is not rocket science.

Forbes – 92% say they would stop purchasing from a company after three or fewer poor customer service experiences.

Let me give you 5 very practical “Staires Steps!” to help you create repeat business and customer service that wow’s now.   These are steps you can begin implementing today.

Step #1 – Define Your Goals

1. 1. What are your goals for what you want people to say when they encounter your service or product?  Write those goals down. Keep it simple and then communicate those goals to your team. You gotta Say it all the time, Write it everywhere and not just in an employee handbook that sits on the shelf; Show it with pictures hung up all over the place and you’ve gotta Model it everyday as their example to follow.
   2. Make sure that your business exists to serve you and that you don’t become a slave to your business.
   3. NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “A goal is a dream with a deadline.” – Napoleon Hill , who couldn’t be here today. (The former personal apprentice of Andrew Carnegie and the author of Think and Grow Rich, the best-selling self-help book of all-time which has now sold over 100,000,000 copies)
   4. Another great stat from Forbes – According to a survey conducted with over 2500 participants, 71% of customers desire a consistent experience across any encounter with your company, but only 29% receive it.  That’s…uh… carry the 4…uh… 42% don’t receive it!! Almost half!
   5. Story / Example – One of our clients, a countertop company here in Tulsa, started our coaching program because they just felt stuck.  They weren’t growing and they were always frustrated with their employees. We started them out with defining their goals and they were shocked at how much clarity it brought them on a daily basis.  It helped them get organized and helped them build a much better team of employees. You can see their video testimonial on our website at www.theleadershipinitiative.com 

• ACTION ITEM – 

1. 1. 1. Take 1 hour to write down your goals for your company.  What do you want people to say about your company?
      2. Post these goals in a spot where everyone on your team can see them.
      3. Go to www.theleadershipinitiative.com and watch our clients video testimonials on Growing Your Business about Vision and Goals

Step #2 – Define Your Roles

1. What key positions do you need to have on your team to turn your goals into reality?
2. Before you appoint the WHO, you gotta know the WHAT.
   1. 1. 1. What do your customers want most out of your service and your product?  Speed, knowledge, friendliness, best selection, price? Do you know what they want?  Don’t just assume… ASK THEM!
         2. Also, What positions will your customers come in contact with on a consistent basis?  Is it on the phone, in the field, online, at the counter… where will your customers encounter your service or product.  
         3. You gotta know these things if you endeavor to create consistent customer experiences.
         4. Remember 42% of customers say they don’t get quality customer service!  But you can do it! This is not rocket science.
3. NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “A small team of A+ players can run circles around a giant team of B and C players”. – Steve Jobs (Co-founder of Apple, founder of NeXT and the former CEO of PIXAR)
4. NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “Nothing works unless you do.” – Maya Angelou (Best-selling author, actress and playwright)
5. Story / Example – We have a client that’s in the aerospace industry.  Over 400 employees and a budget of over $200M but his leadership team of 12 people were running crazy.  It was like a pee wee soccer team with everyone chasing the ball. Everyone seemed to have to be involved in everything that went on.  On a winning sports team, everyone has a responsibility and, as a team, you rely on each player to play their position.  It has taken some time, but we now have clear responsibilities for each person on the team.  They have moved from planning with no execution to knowing their individual role in the plan so they can execute with confidence and stay out of others’ way.  
6. ACTION ITEM – 
   1. 1. Create a Responsibility Chart (like an org chart) where each box is a responsibility and not just a persons name.
      2. Then assign names to each responsibility.
      3. Put this chart up in a spot where everyone on your team can see it.
      4. YouTube – Traction Accountability Chart and watch Gino Wickmans 3 minute video.  He explains it real well.

Step #3 – Design Your Systems

1. 1. Now that you know the WHAT that needs to get done, we move to THE HOW to do what you need to do.
   2. This is one of the biggest complaints we hear from business owners that reach out to us for coaching.  The can’t seem to find employees that will do what they ask them to do. Most of the time, when we dig a little, we find that the employees were told what to do but now how to do what they needed to do.
   3. This is where your written systems come in to play.
      1. 1. 1. Write Scripts for phone calls and presentations
            2. Write scripts for how you want your employees to welcome your customers when they come into the store.
            3. Create Checklists for all your repeating activities
            4. Write Auto-Responder emails, etc.
   4. After 7 years in business, my company has over 300 systems that we rely on to make sure our company runs smoothly.  We have a system for just about every activity in the company and we refer to them all the time.
   5. NOTABLE QUOTABLE – ““We don’t like checklists. They can be painstaking. They’re not much fun. But I don’t think the issue here is mere laziness. There’s something deeper, more visceral going on. It somehow feels beneath us to use a checklist, it’s an embarrassment.”― Atul Gawande (He is a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and the best-selling author of The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right)
   6. Forbes – The survey indicated that 68% would pay more to the company that provides great service.  Did you hear that? I just told you how you can increase your prices and make more money!
   7. Story / Example – One of our clients is the largest home builder in Oklahoma.  Using systems, he was able to train a brand new employee how to sell a house in one day and that person sold 4 homes in their first week!  Systems allow you to get ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Without written systems, you will always have to be present to make sure they do it right.

• ACTION ITEM – 

1. 1. 1. 1. Write a step by step system for a repeating task you that your team can’t seem to get right.
         2. Teach it to your team and have them follow this system each time they do this task.

Step 4 – Implement a Culture of Accountability / Followup

1. “Trust but verify.”  Russian Proverb made popular by Ronald Reagan.
2. This is where most businesses drop the ball – they don’t hold the team accountable for implementing the proven processes you’ve put in place.  Leaders and Managers tell people what to do but don’t follow up to ensure it gets done the way you expect it to get done.
3. As a leader, you must hold your employees accountable for what you’re asking them to do.
   1. 1. 1. Video cameras in your store.
         2. GPS locators on your vehicles.
         3. Call Recording on your phones.
         4. Daily Scorecards for each employee
         5. Daily or weekly meetings to follow up on assignments and production.
4. NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “Only the paranoid survive.” – Andy Grove the co-founder of Intel.  You gotta act like no one will do it unless you are checking up on them… because… they won’t!
5. Story / Example –  We have a client that’s a chiropractor.  He had a clinic in Colorado where he lived and one in Ohio.  His plan was for the 3 doctors in Ohio to do what he was doing alone in Colorado but for some reason, they weren’t getting it done.  They were spending more money and had less revenues than his clinic in Colorado where he was the only doctor. He had abdicated responsibility and as a result he almost went out of business. 
6. ACTION ITEM – Schedule the weekly meetings / metrics into your calendar that matter:
   1. 1 hour – Weekly Accounting Meeting – Know Your Numbers 
   2. 1 hour – Weekly Mandatory All Staff Meeting – 
   3. 10 Minute – Daily Morning Huddles
   4. 1 hour – Weekly Sales Team Meeting – Public Scorecard

Step 5 – Track What Matters 

1. 1. As leaders, we must “Measure What We Treasure”
   2. Create a Compelling Scorecard to track all your production.  If you can’t see it, you can’t manage it.
   3. What is actually getting done!
   4. NOTABLE QUOTABLE – ““If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” – Peter Drucker (The iconic management consultant who developed an extensive consulting business built around his personal relationship with top management. He became legendary among many of post-war Japan’s new business leaders trying to rebuild their war-torn homeland.)
   5. Story / Example – We have a carpet cleaning client up in Fairbanks, Alaska that we have been working with for just 3 months.  One of the first steps we implement with all our clients is a scoreboard that tracks the activities that move the needle for their company.  He just told me this week that he had never done this before and he was amazed at how focused it keeps him and his team each day. Yes, what you measure will grow!!

• ACTION ITEM – 

1. 1. 1. 1. Create a Compelling Daily Scorecard – everyone has a number they are accountable for.  All tasks must be measurable.
         2. Make the scorecard public for all to see.
         3. Each employee reports each day on their production number.  Did you meet your mark?
         4. Hold them accountable to the production you expect of them.  If they consistently fall short, you must replace them with someone that can.

This is how you create consistent Outstanding Customer Service.  Chick-fil-a does it. Disney does it. Southwest Airlines does it.  You can do it too.

This was – The 5 Staires Steps For How to Create Repeat Business and Customer Experiences that WOW NOW 

If you want to continue to learn about this you can reach me at www.theleadershipinitiative.com.  If you fill out the form on our home page we’ll give you a FREE 13-Point Assessment on your company that includes scores on how Google Friendly your website is, your branding, marketing, sales conversion systems, accounting, hiring and training and much more.  Just go to www.theleadershipinitiative.com and fill out the form on our home page.

Thank you for joining me today and now BACK TO YOU OMAR!